


Encounter (A Stitch in Time Remix)

by Neverever



Category: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:09:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29435115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverever/pseuds/Neverever
Summary: Tony has to go back in time to stop Kang before Kang wrecks the universe, but he has an unexpected encounter with a figure from his past, Steve.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42
Collections: 2021 Captain America/Iron Man Remix Relay





	Encounter (A Stitch in Time Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Time Travel (Don’t Leave Me Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29409261) by [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan). 



> Written for the 2021 Cap-IM Remix Relay. This was fic number 7 in the Bread Chain; I remixed Time Travel by navaan and hollyandvice remixed my fic.
> 
> Big thanks to arms-plutonic for all the beta work!

“This guy just never gives up,” grumbled Tony as he strapped Reed’s time travel device to his gauntlet. 

“I suppose he didn’t become Kang the Conqueror by sitting at home,” Reed replied lightly. “The coordinates are already programmed into the device.” 

All they knew was that a Kang had escaped to various points in time to do some mischief. The Avengers were being dispatched to stop the time line damage. With such little information, all they had to go on were their wits and Kang knowledge.

“Right.”

Steve should have been there to give the mission directives. He would have explained the mission clearly, assigned Avengers according to their strengths, and added in a pep talk for good measure.

Tony closed his eyes and drew in a breath. Even thinking Steve’s name was painful. They’d lost him when the Council of Cross-Time Kangs broke a Kang out of the Avengers’ custody. Steve had not come back with the rest of the team when the New Avengers had rescued them from the temporal void.

Damn it, he missed Steve. He’d missed him every cursed day since Steve disappeared. Tony spent his days waking up alone in his bed and going to bed alone, never being able to fill that Steve-shaped hole in his life.

“Ready?” Reed asked, breaking into Tony’s thoughts. “You have six hours to complete the mission. The device will then transport you back, before you can do any damage to the timestream.”

“Sure. Whatever. Let’s do this,” Tony replied, hitting the device button.

One moment he was in Reed’s lab, next he was next to a dumpster in an alley in New York. His destination in time -- the night that AIM and HYDRA fought in New York over the Cosmic Cube.

Tony remembered the crazy chaos of that night, the thousand blaring sirens, cops, firemen and SHIELD agents flooding the streets, capturing a handful of HYDRA agents only to face an AIM fire fight, the final fight in the warehouse on fire. 

The HUD was picking up the signs of the fight. AIM had refused payment for the Cosmic Cube about forty-five minutes earlier. About a half-hour ago, Natasha had shown up at the mansion asking for help. The team would be spread out through the city.

Reed had pinpointed that Kang had come here, to this specific night, to do something to disrupt the future. Tony had already suffered through three days of changing time. Not that any of the changes brought Steve back to him, even briefly.

On a night like tonight -- Kang would have dozens of opportunities to mess up the timeline. Jan and Hank were tangling with a reluctant Hill down in the Seaport District. Tony and Thor were working the airspace above the city -- Tony could precisely recall when he saw the tiny black hole AIM opened above Central Park. Steve would be trying to direct the team --

Wait.

The target would be Steve. Kang had an unhealthy obsession about Steve being in the wrong time and that fact would be the downfall of all civilization. Guess it depended on your viewpoint how bad that was. Bad for Kang was mostly good for the future of Earth.

If Kang took out Cap tonight, the Avengers would fall apart. And it would be easy for Kang to snag Steve during the chaos of this night.

Tony stepped out into the alley away from the dumpster. JARVIS was already scanning for the tiny subtle signs that Kang was there. The alley was near the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 68th Street, not far from the mansion. 

Kang could be plotting something at the mansion right now while the team was away. Wouldn’t be the first time Steve was ambushed and kidnapped right in his own bedroom.

Tony would need to avoid the fight. He could stealth his way there. Good thing he’d designed armor camouflage. 

And that’s when Captain America unexpectedly pulled up to the alley entrance on his motorcycle. Tony hit the camouflage button on the suit before Steve could see him.

But Steve was unaware of his surroundings. Tony could see the bright flashes of gun and laser fire in the slices of sky visible from the alley. Steve leaned heavily against the wall. He pulled his cowl back, thumped his head against the concrete wall, and closed his eyes, a flash of pain and deep sadness crossing over his face. 

How young Steve was back then had never registered with Tony when Steve first came on the team. The team, except for Jan, hadn’t been patient or understanding with him. They hadn’t known his value yet, understood how much they really needed him, that he was the glue to hold the whole team together. Tony had been so caught up in attempting to be the leader of the team that he hadn’t picked up on the lessons on leadership Steve snuck into briefings or training sessions.

Seeing Steve pulling himself together privately like this -- a quiet, vulnerable moment in an alleyway -- tugged at Tony’s heart. 

Tony wanted to reach out, pat Steve on the shoulder and say, “I promise you at 2 am you’ll be sitting in the middle of the library telling everyone how proud you are of the teamwork we showed. We pull together as a team, we stop HYDRA and AIM and get the magic wishing rock.”

_After a lot of other stuff, we’ll be living together in the mansion, the happiest we’ve ever been._

Reed had been very clear about interfering with time and the damage he could cause. But this was Steve, the love of his life, and he couldn’t leave him in pain.

The idea of being able to touch and to talk with Steve again was overwhelming. Screw Reed and his scientific niceties. This was Steve.

He took the armor camouflage off. “Hey, Cap, funny meeting you here,” he said. At least the voice modulators in the helmet would hide his voice cracking from Steve.

Steve pulled the cowl back over his face and snapped right into Captain America mode. Tony still marveled at how he could do that. That there was a difference between Steve and Cap. Though Steve was always terribly earnest and sincere in either mode.

Tony’s heart broke again.

“Iron Man -- aren’t you with Thor?”

Tony was always a good liar. “JARVIS told me that AIM agents were attempting to break into the mansion. I’ll just take care of it and get right back into the fight.”

Cap smiled at Tony. “We’ll go together. I can catch up to the Hulk later.”

A thought flashed through Tony’s brain. Yes, that’s right, Steve would partner up with Hulk soon -- tonight would be the time when Steve would reach through to Hulk, getting Hulk to listen to Steve’s commands during battles. If that moment -- when Steve told Hulk he was a hero -- didn’t happen, the Avengers would lose one of their heaviest hitters. The team’s ability to stop the coming alien invasions and especially Kang would unravel.

Kang was here to stop that moment. 

Alrighty, Tony had apparently been born to save Steve since he did that very well. And Steve rewarded that talent with gusto.

“Iron Man?” Cap asked.

“Just scanning. Ready to head to the mansion?”

Steve threw a leg over the seat of his motorcycle. “You lead, I’ll follow.”

Tony’s heart nearly stopped. No, it’s going to be the other way around. They’d first encountered Kang not long before -- when Kang came back to kill Steve to save his own future. That’s when Tony had begun to think that Steve should be leading the Avengers.

This Steve, though, would know none of that. He had no idea what lay ahead in the future. The fight in Asgard, the Skrull invasion, the Purple Man. Tony suggesting Steve lead the Avengers, Steve asking Tony out on a date. 

They sped over to the mansion. Cap on his bike, Iron Man flying above. 

Past Tony and past Steve had so much ahead of them -- Tony could spare Steve the months on the Skrull prison ship. He’d let Steve down. Tony had sunk into his own misery and pain and had fled the Avengers when he was on the verge of a complete breakdown, deserting people when they needed him the most. He knew now it was because he had picked up that something was wrong about Steve and he had failed to face it head on.

Because he loved Steve, was already unable to think straight around him, and he had been undone by Skrull Steve.

If he had said something, if he had just reached out to Fury or to Jan or to Rhodey, he could have stopped the Skrulls, and found Steve sooner. 

Cap made a motion towards the mansion. Tony landed as gently as he could. Then Steve grinned at him.

Tony was shocked. Did Steve have a crush on him then that he never noticed? 

He should look for Past Tony and slap some sense into him about Steve. 

Wonderful, perfect Steve -- they had too short a time together. If they had started dating now, Tony would’ve had more time with him.

“I thought you said there were agents,” Cap said. He pointed towards a shadowy figure moving behind the concrete fence of the mansion.

“JARVIS isn’t always right,” Tony said cheerily.

He felt giddy, grabbing at these few moments with Steve. Great to be on a mission with him -- working as partners, solving a problem together. He’d missed this too. Just as much as he missed Steve smiling at him in the mornings when they woke up together in their huge bed.

“Okay. Take him down?”

“Take him down,” Steve agreed. 

They moved quickly and quietly, jumping over the fence. The shadowy figure was absorbed in scanning the building and didn’t notice them creeping up behind.

“Gotcha,” Steve said as he pounced on the man. He knocked the man to the ground, putting him in a chokehold. He looked at Tony, “You wanna call SHIELD?”

Tony could tell immediately this was a random HYDRA goon, not Kang. “We need to check for more --”

Steve nudged Tony. “Like the guy in the floating chair over there?”

“Right.”

“Isn’t Kang supposed to be in prison?”

“Well, you know, things happen,” Tony replied.

“Huh.” Steve was calculating how to take him down. “I’m not going to ask how.”

Kang hadn’t noticed them yet. As far as Tony could tell, Kang was also recalculating his position. “Fine. Let’s get him too.”

“Tony, wait,” Steve said, finally putting a gloved hand on Tony’s arm. Tony froze in place, staring at the hand on his arm. “I know that you are from the future,” Steve said quietly. 

“What? How?” Tony demanded, rattled down to his core

“You carry yourself differently, you’re more efficient in fighting. Plus you’re there.” Cap pointed to a distant Iron Man fighting an AIM airship.

“It’s all Kang, you know,” Tony offered as an explanation.

“He’s not indestructible. This is what we are going to do.”

They executed Steve’s plan perfectly. They snuck up as close as they could. Then Steve flung the shield to take out the floating chair while Tony unibeamed Kang into the pavement of the mansion walkway. Steve grabbed and held Kang in place.

“Why are you stalking Cap?” Tony snapped.

“You know why,” Kang replied. “We need to stop Captain America to save the earth. He will destroy the earth, the universe.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. Kang had been worried about Skrull!Steve -- that had been his working theory. Steve beat the odds and didn’t destroy the earth. Or was it that Kang was fundamentally threatened by Steve’s existence in any time line ever? No Steve, no Avengers, so Kang defeated the earth sooner.

Maybe it really was as simple as that. Kang wanted Steve gone for too many reasons. 

“Back to a cell for you,” he said. He slapped and activated a time travel device on Kang, programmed to bring him right to Tony’s time. Kang disappeared in a ball of light.

“You know, tt doesn’t mean that any of what he says comes to pass,” Steve said. He tugged on his gloves. “He said that last time we fought.”

“I have to go,” Tony blurted out.

He wanted to tell Steve not to go back to his room alone when they came back from Asgard, to stay down in the library with the rest of the team. He’d fix the shield, he could do that. 

The memory of Steve in the space prison still burned through Tony’s soul -- he’d been the one to give up when the Skrulls invaded, not Steve. 

He wished desperately that he could kiss Steve one more time. But this Steve wasn’t his own Steve yet. All he had to console himself was this brief extra mission -- his last chance to see Steve. 

But yet, no one had to know, did they? If he warned Steve about the future?

“Steve, when we come back from Asgard, bring the shield down to my workshop before you unpack and take a shower.”

Cap cocked his head to the side. “That sounds very specific -- maybe I shouldn’t know about the future.”

“It’s not a big secret thing from the future. Just, you know, a thing,” Tony lied. He could feel the pull from his time getting stronger as Reed called him back. Steve was beginning to fade. 

“Cap -- we need you. Hulk is in Columbus Circle --” Jan’s voice rang out over the comms. 

“You need to go,” Tony said. 

“It’s going to be okay, Tony,” Cap said. “Whatever it is like where you are from, it’s going to be okay. You’re the futurist -- I believe in you.”

Tony nearly cried. Damn it, it was so like Steve to give him a pep talk. Go back to the future, futurist, and lose Steve again. 

Time to go. The mission was done. Back to the future where he once put all his hopes. The only hope he now had was the lingering intelligent look in Steve’s eye as he parsed Tony’s weird last words to him. 

~~~~~

Tony stepped back into Reed’s lab and heard “Tony, you’re back,” from Steve. 

A big smile spread across Tony’s face, as relief and pure joy flooded through him at the sight of Steve glad to see him back after a successful mission.

“Yeah, piece of cake,” Tony replied, repressing the urge to throw himself at Steve. “Easy peasy --”

“Lemon squeezy,” Steve answered, finishing Tony’s sentences as he always did, not missing a single beat, as if he had always been there.


End file.
